It may be sinking at an alarming rate, but Venice will live on in Street View

With the picturesque, canal-carved Italian city of Venice apparently sinking five times faster than scientists first thought, Google decided the wise thing to do would be to send out a Street View team to capture the remarkable beauty of this stunning location before it disappears forever in a sea of bubbles and frothing gelato (of various flavors). And the results of its visit are now on the Web for all to enjoy.

To navigate Venice’s intricate network of narrow streets and waterways, Google had to make use of its camera-equipped Trekker backpacks, covering some 265 miles on foot and 114 miles by boat in the process.

“Venice was once described as ‘undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man,’ and from these pictures it’s hard to disagree,” Daniele Rizzetto, Street View operations manager, wrote in a blog post announcing the new panoramic imagery.

Piazza San Marco, Venice, on Street View.

Highlights include famous landmarks as well as several “hidden gems”, including “the Synagogue of the first Jewish Ghetto, the Devil’s Bridge in Torcello island, a mask to scare the same Devil off the church of Santa Maria Formosa, and the place where the typographer Manutius created the Italics font,” Rizzetto wrote.

If you fancy digging a little deeper into Venice’s art and history, you can do so by visiting the city’s Museo Correr via Google’s Cultural Institute website.

“The Floating City is steeped in culture; it’s easy to see why it’s retained a unique fascination and romance for artists, filmmakers, musicians, playwrights and pilgrims through the centuries – and now, we hope, for Street View tourists too,” Rizzetto, who counts himself as a “proud Venetian”, said in his post.